47-year-old Heather Russell was diagnosed a year ago with Stage IV cancer and applied for Social Security disability benefits. She was initially denied benefits, and so kept working at her job at Home Depot despite the toll the end-stage cancer was taking on her.

Russell died before receiving Social Security Disability benefits. And it wasn't until a few weeks before her death that her family learned that her claim likely could have been expedited because of her terminal condition.

It wasn't until recently, with the help of staff from Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter's Dover office, that the Russells learned Social Security provides "compassionate allowances," according to the agency, in order to "quickly target the most obviously disabled individuals for allowances based on objective medical information that we can obtain quickly."

But Heather Russell received no compassionate allowance. And she died while her Social Security Disability claim was mired in red tape.

Russell's family says that her final months could have been so much easier had her disability benefits been approved. She wouldn't have had to continue to work and to worry about how to pay her rent and other bills.

Heather Russell's story is a sad reminder of why the Social Security Disability system is sorely in need of reform.

Statistics showing how deep the backlog is -- as much as two years in some cases -- are compelling. But it's stories like that of Kevin Smith of Spindale, N.C., that illustrate why reform and improvements to the Social Security Disability system are so necessary.

Because of a bureaucratic mistake -- a computer coding error -- Smith failed to receive $14,000 in back pay after being approved for Social Security Disability benefits for his chronic neck and back problems.

It wasn't until a local  television station made an inquiry that Smith got his money.

This TV station apparently gets a lot of request for help from Social Security Disability applicants for help regarding their claims. Their number one bit of advice (it's ours too): Hire an attorney to assist with your clam. 

Our attorneys and paralegals at the Deuterman Law Group know the Social Security Disability system inside and out, and we've handled countless cases. We know how to deal with the bureaucracy to get our clients the benefits that they deserve in as prompt a manner as possible.

According to a report at NJ.com, a new survey from Allsup reveals:

The average New Jerseyan will wait as long as 16 months before a hearing to determine whether they are eligible for benefits. Although that’s an improvement from more than 17 months in September 2008, it’s still the 13th longest wait in the country. Reviewing the first two applications in New Jersey takes an average of six months, said Kevin Smith, spokesman for the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development. That makes the full wait for New Jersey residents as long as 22 months before the entire process is completed.

As we've written here before, the Social Security disability backlog is a real hardship for disabled workers. Most initial claims are denied, and it's the norm that people will wait a year, if not two, for a hearing and receipt of benefits. In that time, the bills pile up and their financial situations worsen.

The Social Security Administration is attempting to cut the backlog by hiring more administrative law judges, but the problem is far from fixed.

Nationally, the average wait time for a hearing and decision on SSDI benefits is 442 days, down from 514 days in September 2008.

As bad as things are in New Jersey, they're worse in other states.

Allsup's analysis found that the Social Security Disability backlog was longest in Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Nebraska, Illinois, Missouri, the District of Columbia and Alabama.

An individual with a disability who lives in Delaware will wait on average fewer than 10 months for a hearing, while the same applicant in Ohio would wait almost 20. The 10 states with the lowest wait times are Delaware, Maine, Texas, Louisiana, West Virginia, Utah, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Connecticut and Hawaii.

The trend continues, according to the Las Vegas Sun:

Since October, the number of people waiting to have a claim processed has jumped more than 30 percent, from about 556,000 to 736,000 last month. Although most of those initial claims will be denied, many will end up before an administrative law judge on appeal. Nearly 750,000 people are waiting for a hearing before overwhelmed judges.

Now  according to the newspaper, there's evidence that some overloaded administrative law judges, who hear Social Security Disability cases on appeal, are being forced to take shortcuts to meet quotas.

The Social Security Administration requires that administrative law judges hear 500 to 700 cases a year, which many judges are saying is an unrealistic caseload. The growing backlog is making the burden even harder to bear.

Ultimately, disabled workers are suffer and will continue to suffer until the system is overhauled.

“No one ever says, ‘do a sloppy job,’ ” said Marilyn Zahm, executive vice president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges. “But to pretend you can keep pumping out decision after decision and spend the requisite amount of time on each case is foolish. That’s shortchanging people, and the system will lack integrity if you do not require everyone to do a good job.”

“Corners are being cut in order to accommodate a backlog and at the end of the day everyone is going to suffer,” she said. “People have a right to expect due process ... At a certain point, no more corners can be cut.”

The fear, she said, is that legitimate claims may be rejected or fraudulent claims accepted in the rush to do business.

Indeed, the pressure and disciplinary threats have caused some judges to take shortcuts, Zahm said.

“Hearings are being shortened, not all information in the file is being reviewed, not all medical reports are being obtained, and full and legally defensible decisions may not be rendered, either because due consideration hasn’t been given or the decision is poorly written,” she said. “When people have too much work to do in the amount of time allotted to do it, you get sloppy work.”

The Social Security Disability can't continue to function this way. If the system isn't overhauled -- if more administrative law judges aren't hired and trained -- to hear cases, more legitimate claims will be denied. And disabled people will have to go through multiple layers of appeals before receiving the benefits to which they're entitled.

Among the findings of the Allsup Disability Study: Income at Risk:

• For the second quarter of 2009, people with disabilities experienced an unemployment rate 53 percent higher than people without disabilities, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor.
• In June,  three in 10 of the unemployed had been jobless for 27 weeks or more, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistic.
• Disability applications rose to more than 727,000 in the second quarter of 2009, up 7 percent from the first quarter. Year to date there has been a 22-percent jump in initial disability applications compared to the same period in 2008.

An increase in the number of applications for Social Security Disability benefits impacts the Social Security Administration's ability to process those claims, delaying the assignment of benefits. Most claimants wait an average of 2 1/2 years for their Social Security benefits, but for some the backlog can stretch the wait to four years.

That's why it's so important to apply for benefits as soon as you become disabled. It's customary to be denied benefits initially, and it's often that point that  people seek a qualified and experienced Social Security Disability attorney to help with their claim.

Dan Neer, a 38-year-old North Dakota man who injured his back moving furniture learned this the hard way: It took him more than two years from his first application to get Social Security disability benefits.

Lawmakers are also starting to notice the backlog. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., has asked President Bush and the inspector general's office to review the process of applying for disability.

"There seems to be something wrong if two-thirds on appeal are found disabled," Dorgan said.

"We must stop the inexcusable delay in getting Social Security benefits to people with disabilities.

Hundreds of thousands of people who have filed legitimate disability claims with the Social Security Administration have been forced to wait, on average, an astonishing 520 days for a hearing on their claims. Many have waited as long as three years, losing their homes in the process."

Amen. Read on for Ervin's thought-provoking article about the Social Security backlog.

"[Monday's] front-page New York Times story highlighting the human toll of the growing backlogs in our Social Security Disability Insurance system is a stark reminder that Congress and the President must act immediately to address this problem," Clinton said. "I have for several years been calling on this Administration to adequately fund the Social Security Administration to ensure that people with disabilities and retirees can access the benefits they deserve. "

• Since 2000, the backlog of cases has soared from 311,000 to 755,000
• Most applicants now wait 500 days for an appeals hearing, twice as long as in 2000, when the wait was 258 days.

What can be done to reduce the backlog and help disabled people get benefits they deserve sooner? The answer is simple really. Hire more appeals judges.

The Social Security Administration has plans to do so, but for now, the money is not there. As The Time's article points out, "the agency’s new plan to hire at least 150 new appeals judges to whittle down the backlog...will require $100 million more than the president requested this year and still more in the future. The plan has been delayed by the standoff between Congress and the White House over domestic appropriations."

Of course, the way that the SSD process is structured also contributes to the backlog. In order to be approved for benefits, a claimant must prove that their physical or mental disabilities prevent them for doing any kind of substantial work or otherwise prove that an illness is expected to result in death.

As we've blogged before, most social security disabilty claims are rejected initially, and many people find it helpful to get an attorney involved at this stage. Because of the backlog, we always encourage people to apply for benefits as soon as they become disable and unable to work.

To find out more about the Social Security Disability claims process, check out the Deuterman Law Group's Web site.

While waiting for Social Security benefits can be stressfully and a huge emotional drain, there is good news at the end of the battle.

Though two-thirds of people are denied benefits upon initial application, two-thirds of people who pursue their claim through the appeals process end up being rewarded benefits. But for many people, the long wait has devasting consequences.

The Times also published an editorial about the Social Security delays yesterday that called out President Bush for vetoing a spending bill that would have given more money to the underfunded Social Security Administration and perhaps would have made a dent in the backlog.

"Last month, Congress passed a $151 billion health, education and labor spending bill that would have given the Social Security Administration $275 million more than the president requested, enough to hire a lot more judges and provide other vital services. But Mr. Bush vetoed that bill as profligate."

The New York Times has an extensive library of articles about the Social Security Administration and the Social Security Disability backlog. I encourage you to check it out. Click on the following link to read more about Social Security disability benefits.

The contrary is actually true.

Even if you're entitled to benefits, your claim is likely to be denied initially. And most people wait 18 months or longer before they begin collecting benefits, a backlog that can cause extreme financial stress.

The USA Today report, however, does starkly illustrate the financial, physical and emotional stresses that disabled workers experience while waiting for Social Security benefits.

Consider the case of  26-year-old Jason Hoaks, who was a corrections officer in Wyoming when he was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in 2002. He suffered a stroke during surgery that resulted in vision problems, the loss of strength and sensation on his right side, memory loss and depression. Hoaks returned to work with limited duties until 2005, Both times, he appleid for Social Security Disability benefits and was denied, but finally won on appeal, 18 months later.

"Hoaks' experience with the Social Security disability system isn't unusual. Of 2.5 million people who file disability claims annually, nearly two in three get denied initially. If they pursue a federal hearing, they join about 745,000 others whose appeals are backlogged. As of June, their average wait for a decision was 529 days. The lengthy waits lead to bankruptcies and foreclosures, drinking and drugs, depression and divorce, even suicide, according to claimants, their representatives and employees of the Social Security Administration."

 You don't need an attorney to file for -- or win -- Social Security Disabilty benefits. But an attorney has experience with the system and can really help you navigate the red tape and Social Security bureaucracy . If you have been denied Social Security benefits, an attorney may be able to help you obtain Social Security Disability benefits.

Check out the investigative reporting by WCNC, where the reporters have discovered that 7 out of 10 claims are denied by disability determination agents.

http://www.wcnc.com/news/local/stories/wcnc-043007-al-disability_insurance.2203eaa4.html

and the video   http://www.wcnc.com/video/index.html?nvid=139951